I will be looking at the holsters I use in the future very carefully. I never really selected a holster with great amounts of forethought beyond the comfort of the carry or how it held the pistol when I moved. I only ever used them on the range.

"Regarding the additional safety of the empty chamber: wouldn't it only be a safer draw if the upcoming chamber was the empty one, not the one under the hammer?"

The revolver I owned had a heavy trigger pull and was not one I could draw quickly. Keeping the chamber empty was a passive safety deal I was taught. At the spur of some previous posts I looked at the numbers for accidental discharges, and have concluded that it really isn't necessary.

The guns I was worried about were automatics. I mostly shot with a 9mm Browning Hi-Power and Sig p226. The trigger pulls were much lighter and the holsters I used were small.

It wasn't so much that he said to ignore it as he was a believer in gross motor movements in training for a stress reaction. The reasoning was this: if you are surprised, fine motor control goes out, therefore think about big motions. True or not, this makes sense for me.

That logic does make sense, but it can be misapplied easily—as it has been in this case. Disengaging the manual safety on an M1911A1 (which is what the Marine used as a tunnel rat, and is what my pistol mimics) is a gross motor movement, provided one has trained as I described earlier.

Furthermore, the phrase “gross motor movement” doesn't apply strictly to large movements. A large movement may be a fine motor movement if it requires some manner of detail-oriented execution. Racking the slide whilst drawing, necessary to ready the firearm during “Israeli carry”, is dependent on many more factors than one's ability to push with the thumb of the right hand (or the index finger of the left hand, in the case of a lefty).

Originally Posted by qbe9584

I'm not following you there.

Leaving the chamber under the hammer empty only makes sense in a single action revolver which lacks a firing pin safety, and even then only in designs dating prior to the 20th century. The M1911(A1) will not fire when dropped, regardless of the position of the hammer and the engagement of the manual safety—and it doesn't even have a firing pin safety. I stress that point because modern firearm design solved the problem which concerns you, even without adding the kind of firing pin safety seen on current pistols and revolvers.

Originally Posted by qbe9584

That is a nice one. When you draw or holster, do you keep your finger outside the holster?

My finger is outside the holster in both circumstances, which it must be by nature of the holster's design. Do you actually think you could fit your finger in there?

Originally Posted by qbe9584

I accept correction when it's offered. I still don't trust a loaded gun with passive safeties. I guess if one gets dropped, I would be the only guy here to flinch. I admit my limitations and state the logic of my position as clearly as I can. A lot of folks didn't address what I was taught to emphasize. What can I say?

Scouting got me interested in my early teens, and I shot with family friends who were in the military. I continued shooting until college. At college, I did not have a gun, and after college I moved to Texas, where I could purchase my own weapon and had friends to shoot with.

I moved and picked up different information from different places. Not trolling.

Sounds to my like you were given instruction and then accepted it as truth. Which most of us do. When we are presented with information that conflicts with what we are taught, we tend to get defensive and feel cornered.

But it sounds like you are looking into some of the issues that have been brought up and are adjusting your beliefs. I commend you for that.

Sure. When I lived in Texas, I kept .38 special hollowpoints for indoor use. There were four walls and a bathroom intervening between my rooms door and the room where my roomie was. The exterior walls and two of the interior walls were brick. He had a shotgun, so if somebody came in, we wanted to be reasonably certain we weren't going to kill each other. I had .357 ammo, but I would shoot that at the range.

His heart was visible, and the dismal sack that maketh excrement of what is eaten.

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Originally Posted by qbe9584

"...If you buy an active retention holster maybe you'll realize when you try to draw quickly you miss the release on the holster every 20th time or so."

Good stuff. I will look into better holsters; you are the first of two people to mention this, and that is not something I had considered.

For the record, my example was just a hypothetical. I wasn't suggesting you're automatically going to miss the release on an active retention holster a certain percentage of the time. I'm just saying if there are problems you'll start to see them by practicing your draw.

Sure. When I lived in Texas, I kept .38 special hollowpoints for indoor use. There were four walls and a bathroom intervening between my rooms door and the room where my roomie was. The exterior walls and two of the interior walls were brick. He had a shotgun, so if somebody came in, we wanted to be reasonably certain we weren't going to kill each other. I had .357 ammo, but I would shoot that at the range.

Although not scientific by any means, the above link should provide a good theoretical foundation for discussing wall penetration. Put simply, any bullet which is likely to have sufficient terminal effect on a human target is likely to go through more than one interior wall (particularly in apartments). Using .38 Special instead of .357 Magnum made sense, but I hope you don't think that choice eliminated the problem altogether.

"Using .38 Special instead of .357 Magnum made sense, but I hope you don't think that choice eliminated the problem altogether."

No. I also made a point to avoid using ball ammunition. I wanted something that would deform on the bricks. But, overall, no, it was not an overall guarantee that the bullet wouldn't go where I didn't want it to. It was the most reasonable precaution that I knew how to take.